What Non-Technical Interview Questions Have You Been Asked?

After my recent article, Looking for Your First Dev Role: Advice for Young Devs by a Young Dev Part 2, I have had a few new devs who are ramping up to apply for their first roles reach out to me and there was one common thread amongst them. They were asking about some of the most common soft skills or non-technical interview questions that I have been asked. Before this happening, I hadn’t really thought about writing a blog post about this topic, but here I am writing it!

With this brief article, I am going to list a few of the most common soft skills and non-technical interview questions that I have been asked over the last year. I would love for any of you reading this that have gone through the interview process in the past to contribute any of the common questions you were asked as well. Let us try to create a great resource for those new devs out there trying to land their first roles or any experienced dev entering the job search again wanting to brush up their interviewing skills!

The Questions

Can you tell me about a time when you overcame a challenge?

Can you give an example of a time you’ve had a conflict with a coworker? How was this conflict resolved?

Give an example of a time you’ve stood up for something you believed was right.

What made you switch careers? What ultimately led you to pursue software engineering?

What project are you most proud of and why?

How would you go about explaining a technical topic/issue with someone non-technical?

Tell me about a time that you built a good relationship with someone you didn’t particularly like.

What was the most difficult aspect of going through bootcamp? What was the most rewarding?

A Quick Note

These are all of the questions that I can think of right now. Check back at any point to see if I’ve added any new questions or to check the discussion section to see questions that the amazing DEV community has added.

I personally know how stressful the job search can be, so I hope that this article can help any of those new devs out there trying to prep for interviews.

Good luck to anyone out there interviewing!

This post's cover image is brought to you from my recent trip to Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park in Volcano, Hawaii.

Got the chance to do some entry-level interviews recently, for non-technical questions we ask a bunch of things along the lines of what you've said, some generic stuff about the company and a few things like;

How do you plan and organise tasks?

What would you do if a customer came to you with something they wanted changed?

During the DEV "in-person" (video) portion of the interview, we really don't ask many technical questions. One of my fav, simple questions is "If I were to ask your colleagues/classmates what your strengths and weaknesses are, what would they share with me?"